Construction Center To Build On Plans At Uf

The National Center For Construction Education And Research Hopes To Help End The Critical Labor Shortages Facing The Industry.

February 22, 1996|By Jack Snyder of The Sentinel Staff

A foundation created two years ago to help the construction industry overcome dire labor shortages will be based permanently at the University of Florida, a trade group announced Wednesday.

The primary mission of the National Center for Construction Education and Research will be to develop craft-training programs that will increase the industry's skilled labor pool, said Daniel J. Bennet, center president.

About 240,000 construction jobs nationwide will go unfilled this year because of a lack of skilled labor, said Gary Hess, president of the Associated Builders and Contractors Inc., a Washington-based trade group that is holding its annual convention at Walt Disney World.

Labor shortages delay the time a project can be completed, said John Jennings, vice president of Jack Jennings & Son General Contractors in Orlando and association president-elect. The delays cost millions of dollars in lost work and production.

''We have to tell clients we can't do the work as quick as they want because we simply don't have the labor,'' Jennings said.

A recent survey of more than 2,400 contractors nationwide found 98 percent reporting labor shortages.

The trade group organized the center in cooperation with a dozen other construction industry associations. More than $11 million has been raised toward a five-year goal of $20 million to support the center, Bennett said.

UF beat out three other finalists - Clemson University, Auburn University and Arizona State University - in a national search for the permanent base.

The center, which will be affiliated with UF's College of Architecture, will be relocated from its temporary home in Rosslyn, Va., by this fall. A staff of 15 to 20 will move to Gainesville to develop curriculums and implement programs.

Wayne Drummond, dean of the College of Architecture, said the affiliation gives the university ''a valuable contact with an organization that is shaping education and research in the construction industry.''

Bennet said the center has already trained 3,200 instructors in its nationally standardized school-to-work program used in high schools.